In recent years, an electron microscope, which is one type of a charged particle radiation apparatus, is used in size measurement or defect inspection for a semiconductor device pattern. For example, a measuring SEM (critical-dimension scanning electron microscope, hereinafter “CD-SEM”) is used for measuring the gate dimension of a semiconductor device, and a defect inspection SEM is used for inspecting a defect. Moreover, a scanning electron microscope is also used in the conduction inspection of a deep hole for wiring using the potential contrast. Furthermore, there is a focused ion beam apparatus which processes and observes a semiconductor device using an ion beam.
When a temperature difference exists between a beam irradiation subject by the charged particle radiation apparatus and a specimen stage for mounting the beam irradiation subject, the specimen is thermally deformed.
PTL 1 discloses that temperature of an electrostatic chuck, i.e. a wafer stage is measured using the thermal expansion due to temperature, by chronologically measuring pattern distance between two points on a dummy specimen, and this measured temperature data is used in confirmation or calibration of beam drift, etc.